Kodak: Young man about to cut down an evergreen tree in his yard, Looks at picture of himself planting tree when he was a kid. Ends with man and family decorating tree–still stuck in ground.
9-Lives: Any Morris commercial.
AT&T: Bill Russell sinking a shot in his office after delivering a commercial.
Hershey’s: Any Hershey’s Kisses commercial
American Cancer Society: William Talman (TV’s “Hamilton Burger”) in a posthumous anti-smoking spot
Two of my favorites are by Joe Sedelmaier. The first is a FedEx commercial involving a little downtrodden businessman who is having one of those days where everything goes wrong. His alarm doesn’t go off - he misses his bus - a passing car splashes him with mud - the elevator in his office building is out of order. All the while he is carrying two huge briefcases, one under each arm, which makes the walk to work and the trip up several flights of stairs even more unpleasant. When he finally makes it to work he passes his secretary on the way in. She’s at a typewriter, typing with her arms fully extended, about one keystroke every two seconds. He says to her:
“Did ya type the letter I told ya ta type?”
She responds:
“NO!”
He opens the door to his office, and there on his desk is a package delivered by Federal Express - the one thing that has gone right all day.
The other commercial is for Alaska Airlines. It shows a guy sitting in an easy chair watching TV. A commercial for Sky High Airlines (a fictional competitor of Alaska) comes on. The commercial shows a Sky High passenger being given free champagne and caviar while sexy flight attendants fawn over him. The commercial-in-a-commercial includes a jingle:
"Sky High Airlines!
"Sky High Airlines!
“We’ve got our heads in the clouds!”
The fake commercial ends with the pilot leaning back out of the cockpit and giving a big wink and a thumbs up. The TV-watcher gives a thumbs up back to the screen.
Cut to the same TV-watcher, now flying on a Sky High Airlines flight. He’s sitting in a tiny seat with no legroom, wedged between two huge men. A hand comes in from offscreen offering him three pretzels on a plate. This is followed by a cut to a passenger on an Alaska flight who’s sitting in a reasonably-sized seat while enjoying a reasonable-looking meal.
Beggin’ Strips, the one with the “dog’s eye view” camera work, complete with “snout” sticking up from the bottom of the screen. Bacon! I smell bacon! … What’s in the bag? What’s it say? I can’t read!!!.
I think it’s hilarious, mostly from the voice work of the “dog”.
I remember seeing a series on one of those old “best commercials” shows, maybe even a Clio award special. Anyway, they were for the Yellow Pages, of all things, but they were very clever. They all took place on a plain white set, and all ended with a zoom in on the page with the listing, and the voice over, “If it’s out there, it’s in here.” See if you can guess the listing from the description.
Ad 1: an upholstered chair. Suddenly, burlesque music begins to play. Tassels on the chair begin to spin, and strips of upholstery fly off of it. Unseen people are cheering and whistling. Listing:
Furniture Stripping
Ad 2: you can just see a fishing rod on the right side of the screen. It casts to the left, and slowly reels in. Again, cast and reel in. A third cast, but this time there’s a bite, and a fish starts sliding across the floor, hooked. Suddenly, a football player runs in from the left and leaps on the fish. Listing:
The Budweiser Super Bowl commercials are always good. Remember the ones after Sept 11? How about the zebra reviewing the play?
I like the Staples ones too…the one with the robot who falls in love with the printer, “weeping weeping.”
The other Staples one played in August. You hear “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” as a guy sails by riding on a shopping cart. You’re thinking that they can’t be advertising Christmas already and then you see two kids following behind, dragging their feet, heads hanging, and realize the Most Wonderful Time is Back to School. The dad gleefully throws school supplies into the cart while the kids pout at him.
The AT&T Go Phone with the mother and daughter fake fighting cracks me up too. “You always loved me and you always will!” “You are the most grateful child!”
As a little girl, I always loved the Salvo commercials. The 1950’s style housewife is despairing about her laundry, and a big, manly hand rises out of her washing machine with a Magic Salvo tablet in hand to make her life sooo much better.
Back in the day, I also liked the “don’t mess with Mother Nature!” commercials for some margarine spread-like substance. Durn, I can’t remember the product now. But I remember the commercials. That counts for something, doesn’t it???
The Norelco Santa Claus riding a razor.
The Pizza Pit commercial from around 1980, playing the weather outside is frightful. The toy delivery car is going through a lot of fake snow.
I like the origina1 McDonald commercials in McDonald Land. Do you even remember Mayor McCheese or the Fillet of Fish?
